Hot and Cold
by Nerd of Camelot
Summary: An Angsthipping oneshot exploring the details of Ryou and Malik's relationship and their personalities. Set post-series but with possible inconsistencies. M for safety.


Ryou and Malik had been together for nearly four years.

It was by far the longest leg of their relationship so far - in reality they'd probably been together for going on 9 years, but had fought almost constantly and broken up every few weeks when they were younger. Of course, they still fought. Often. But now instead of breaking up, they just took breaks.

They didn't get with anybody else, or actually break up, they just didn't live in the same apartment until they were over it. Malik would take off to live with his sister for a while if she was in town, or Ryou would crash at Yugi's place. Shockingly, this method actually worked for them and they were slowly growing better at not fighting.

 _Slowly_.

They had improved exponentially from when they were younger, but fights were still frequent. Ryou could still find something to get angry at Malik about, Malik could still find some flaw in Ryou to exploit, and neither of them could ever keep their mouths shut. They could fight about anything, really, from Ryou's hair to the way Malik looked at other people even when Ryou was around.

And while their breaks let them get over the fights, the conflict was never truly over. They never made up with each other over a lot of them, and even the ones they had made up for could easily be brought back up when Ryou's vision was blurred with angry tears.

The fights that didn't cause them to take a break always led to something that was probably hundreds of times more unhealthy for them… Angry sex. Ryou would get pinned to the bed, or to the wall, or bent over the nearest flat surface, and Malik would fuck him senseless. They'd scratch and bite and punch at each other. Ryou would pretty much do his best to claw out Malik's eyes. Malik would choke him or at least threaten to.

By the end of it, both of them usually had some lasting marks from it. A bruise here, a cut there. Ryou usually had it the worst, since he was so much paler than Malik. He bruised easier - which was why Malik only threatened to choke him now. He'd left one too many handprints on Ryou's neck...

Yugi had almost beat the shit out of him for it - and for a guy who was typically a pacifist, he could be _vicious_. Only if the situation called for it, of course, but the fact remained that Malik wasn't eager to be on the receiving end of a right hook from the shorter man again.

Still, their relationship did have its good points. And it certainly wasn't all bad, even with the fights and the angry sex, since they both got along pretty well most of the time. Ryou's notoriously bad temper wasn't usually in full bloom unless something _other_ than Malik had pissed him off, and Malik could usually avoid taking advantage or making fun of one of Ryou's traits until he was already in a bad mood.

Really, as long as they were in good moods, they were the most loving couple around.

Yugi couldn't even be in the same room with them when they were in a good mood together - watching them hug and kiss and be sweethearts made him want to hurl, despite his happy demeanor. It especially bothered him when they didn't bother to warn him about his impending third-wheelism when they went somewhere together… Not that he needed a warning nowadays. He knew them well enough to know to bring a book or his phone whenever they went somewhere together so he could avoid seeing them be all lovey-dovey.

And their lovey-doveyness knew no bounds. They could be watching a horror movie together at the theatre and they would still find some reason to be kissing. They had almost ended up having sex right next to Yugi on multiple occasions - theatre or not.

Needless to say, he no longer went to their apartment or to the movies with them, unless he was sitting a great deal of space away from them.

Unfortunately, their good moods were easily shattered by small things, probably a byproduct of their upbringings and lives before and after they had met. With Ryou practically harboring the very Darkness itself for years on end and Malik having been raised in less than savory conditions… No one could blame them for being just a tad unstable, especially with each other.

Something they often had rows about was the fact that Ryou believed Malik was only with him was because he reminded Malik of Bakura. Malik always tried to be the reasonable one in those fights, tried to reassure him that he really liked him and _not_ the psychotic Spirit of the Ring, but he always ended up losing his temper and saying something stupid. Things like, "Well at least Bakura didn't throw vases at my head every time he so much as got annoyed with me!" and, "Right now I'd _love_ to be fucking him instead of you!"

It was times like that when _Malik_ was the one who had to leave the apartment. Ryou really made it clear that he wasn't wanted for the time being, and if he wasn't wanted he wasn't sticking around. Despite their bickering and all Malik's bravado, Ryou was terrifying when that blank stare came onto his face. When all the anger drained away and left those piercing eyes staring straight into his soul, lips pressed into a neutral line.

"Get out."

Malik always obeyed immediately, because he had learned years ago that when Ryou looked like that, he was not to be reckoned with. He had scars from the first time he had tried to keep fighting about it after Ryou had gone blank.

When Ryou was so angry that his face changed to that expression, Malik could say for certain that he was much, _much_ worse than his Yami had ever been. Bakura took great pleasure in causing pain to others - he laughed and taunted and made you miserable all for the sake of entertaining himself. He was _always_ ready to hurt someone and you could _always_ tell.

But Ryou? No.

No, Ryou was most definitely worse. Ryou could go from blank faced to smiling in no time at all; he could hide his intentions until it was far too late, and once he started in on you it was horrible. He didn't laugh - this, Malik knew from personal experience -, he didn't even start in on you immediately. He just stood there and _smiled_ at you. Got you pushed into a corner, got you where you couldn't fight back, and smiled. If you struggled, it only got worse for you - that was something they _did_ have in common -, but he would give you your punishment with that smile on his face unless you did something _horribly_ wrong.

Malik still shuddered at the thought of how quickly that smile could be replaced with utter rage.

Even so, the majority of their fights ended in Ryou flinging himself out of the apartment, crying like a child - _not_ becoming so angry that he appeared calm. And if he didn't fling himself out of the apartment, he flung himself into their bedroom and bawled his eyes out for hours. On either occasion, Malik moved himself to the living room for the majority of the time Ryou was upset. He just wasn't comfortable sleeping in their room alone.

And if it happened that Malik was the one who left, Ryou would collapse regardless of how angry he had been and sob brokenly on the kitchen floor. That was where _he_ typically stayed when they had a row. The kitchen was a safe haven to him - even Bakura hadn't typically done anything in the kitchen, so it was a good area for Ryou… Although Ryou still thought that the only reason Bakura hadn't taken control while he was cooking or hurt dinner guests until they'd left the kitchen was so Ryou would still cook and hang out in the kitchen sometimes. As much as the other had hated to admit it, he enjoyed Ryou's cooking.

That was another subject of fights for them - their Yamis. Ryou could look back at Bakura with some kind of sad fondness now, so many years after he'd disappeared, but Malik could by no means do the same for Marik. The very thought of Marik was enough to make Malik curl into a ball and tremble, and seeing his significant other happily carving out the tiny wooden figure of the Thief King had made him so blindly angry he didn't really remember the fight. He only remembered Ryou shouting at him and throwing a large section of one of his Monster World dioramas at him.

The next thing that really came to Malik's mind when trying to recall that night was waking up on the couch the next morning to Ryou sitting at his desk in the corner holding a broken figurine in his hands. Malik knew it was the Thief King, although he wasn't sure if it had been him or Ryou who had broken it during their fight.

They still fought about their yamis sometimes, mostly because Malik envied Ryou's ability to be fond of Bakura. He couldn't bring himself to be fond of Marik. Marik had killed his father and nearly killed Ishizu and Rashid. He had terrorized Yugi's friends, and Yugi and Yami themselves. Given the chance, Malik knew he would have hurt Ryou, too. And, back then, he might not have minded. He certainly hadn't minded Bakura hurting Ryou, or Marik tormenting Yugi and his pals.

He supposed that the reason he got so mad about Ryou's state of mind on Bakura was because Bakura, in a sense, hadn't actually been the bad guy. He was a tainted soul with a tragic past, who had made terrible decisions. It wasn't even his fault he had turned out the way he had. But Marik had been terrible. Sure, Malik knew now that he had been a defense mechanism. He knew it wasn't Marik's fault he was like that, either… But it was much easier to vilify him than it was to victimize himself. He hated to think of himself as weak, which was exactly what he had been.

He hated to admit it, but Marik was what had made him strong… But to this day, Ryou was still mentally much stronger than he was, though he did have the upper hand physically.

And that very fact was yet another thing that caused them to bicker - Ryou's physical lackings. He was naturally small framed, and it was difficult for him to put on weight, but that didn't make him weak by any means. That was something everyone had learned soon after all the supernatural bullshit in their lives had ended. Joey had mentioned that Ryou needed someone to look after him, which Ryou had admitted to, but when Joey had made the mistake of calling him weak (though he definitely hadn't used that word), Ryou had knocked the much more muscular man on his ass. He had done the same thing to everyone who had messed with him about it after that, but eventually consented to letting Joey and Tristan look after him.

"It's nice to have people looking out for me…" Malik remembered him saying quietly one night near the beginning of their relationship.

"Yeah…" Malik had agreed, running his fingers through that long white hair. "I'm here to look out for you, too, you know…"

It had been such a peaceful night. However, the morning had shattered their peace and some trivial thing had nearly driven them to a fist fight.

Malik had been the one to leave that time, though it was before they had an apartment together. He was living with Yugi at the time, technically, so that's where he went. Two days later, Ryou had showed up on the doorstep with red-ringed eyes begging Malik to come back to his apartment.

Both of them cringed to think of how much they had broken up when they were younger. It was ridiculous, and they knew that it was unhealthy. They knew that what they were doing now was unhealthy, too, but they didn't care. As long as they eventually worked everything out, they were a working, healthy couple as far as they were concerned.

More fights still peppered their lives for years - 4 more, to be exact -, before they decided to break off their relationship "for good". They tried seeing other people. They tried to be "just friends". Ryou started smoking to destress himself; Malik started drinking.

A year and a half later, they were back together. Back to fighting at least once a month about something trivial… Until Ryou realized why they fought so much.

"It's simple, really," He told Yugi, "We're too damaged. Too much alike."

"What do you mean?" The still shorter man tilted his head.

"Both of us went through our own personal Hells when we were younger." The paler elaborated, "And we came out of it alive, but forever scarred from it. He can't even think about Marik without getting angry at himself for being weak. And, well, even though I can look back at Bakura and say he was the only friend I had for a while, I know that he's the reason I'm so angry. I spent so much time locked in my own head with both of our emotions that the spite rubbed off on me and now I can't shake it."

Yugi slowly nodded. "I can believe that. After all, with how much time I spent with the Pharaoh, his confidence eventually rubbed off on me."

Ryou nodded, "Exactly." He sighed and looked back to the table. "I think I need some serious therapy."

"We all do," Yugi assured him, "We _all_ do."

 **A/N: Yeah… It stopped making sense to me at some point too. It's not just you. I just really wanted to post something and this is what came of it. Maybe I shouldn't be writing Yu-Gi-Oh! stuff.**


End file.
